


come what may

by kokiche



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: M/M, Reunion Fic, communication issues, ladies and gentlepeople will they Finally spit it out ? Stay Tuned, trigger warning for mentions of abuse (killuas childhood)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 14:08:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5378066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokiche/pseuds/kokiche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killua is five hours early, of course.</p><p>(Or, Killua and Gon meet again after 13 months apart, and neither can hold a conversation.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	come what may

**Author's Note:**

> okay i know everyone and their mom has written a reunion fic but fuck im not gonna stop until togashi fucking writes their reunion himself  
> title comes from a translated lyric from [ this song, ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFaPrwyMPk8) which i listened to for almost the entire time i was writing this, i strongly recommend listening to it while reading  
> anyway, i wrote this instead of studying for my 3 finals and im dying slowly, always

Killua is five hours early, of course.

 

"You're gonna die if you go that early," Alluka warns him beforehand.

"Who asked you," Killua says, his nails ripping through his sweater, yet again- "Ugh, I need another sweater."

"I'm just saying," Alluka shrugs. "You tend to overthink it if you leave yourself this much free time, _Onii-chan_."

"You underestimate Gon," Killua says, in a tone so neutral it sounded unnatural. "If anything, I should go sooner. He might've even come a day early if he feels extra excited to see me."

"But you decided on a time," Alluka says, puzzled.

"Time doesn't mean much to Gon," admits Killua.

"Why did you decide on a time then?"

Killua shrugs. "Custom, I guess." The blood in his veins is already thrumming, his excitement covered up by waves of anxiety.

Alluka blinks. She thinks about it for a little, then runs off to the other room. She returns with a shirt and a bracelet or two in her hands.

"I asked if you could get me another sweater," Killua says.

"You're not going to a meeting like this in some sweater," Alluka states.

Killua frowns. "Why not?"

"Are you kidding, _Onii-chan_? This isn't just another mission that you can throw a turtleneck on and call it a day! You're not talking to him over the phone!" Alluka goes on tiptoes, pulls off Killua's ripped sweater with a great show of effort. "You need to look nice if he's so excited to see you that he's even coming early!"

"I said he might be early. And when did you get all self-important?" Killua grumbles, though he still puts on the shirt Alluka chose. "I know how to dress myself."

Alluka slides the two bracelets on his left hand. "You need to impress him on the first meeting."

"It's Gon," Killua says, "he's seen me hundreds of times."

"Yeah, and those were a year ago. You've changed, and you wanna show him that. You need to look good, remind him you've gotten better." Alluka brushes away hair from his forehead.

"It's Gon," Killua deadpans.

"He's excited to see you," she repeats.

"I said _might_ be," Killua hisses. How Alluka turns everything he says against him, he doesn't know.

"You know him better than anyone."

"Yeah? Maybe he's changed too."

Alluka pauses in trying to fix his hair. She hesitates, and runs her hand through it one last time, standing on tiptoes. "Not about this, I don't think," she says, and scampers away to his room again.

The pounding in his veins gets worse. Before he's realized it, his nails have sharpened out into claws again, digging deep into his palm. He can't do this. Can he?

" _Onii-chan_ ," Alluka interrupts from his bedroom. "You use _Axe_?"

"Yeah," he calls back, and wipes the blood he's drawn from his hands. "It looks cool."

"It's so gross," she wails back. "You need to get cologne that's actually good."

"It _is_ good," Killua says, indignant.

"You might as well not wear cologne at all!"

"I'm going," Killua states, and heads toward the door before Alluka forces him to run to the department store down the street and buy a new one.

"Wait, wait," Alluka calls, desperate, tripping over her shoes in her haste. She runs to stand before him, and squeezes her arms tight around him. "Please have fun," she says, voice muffled from the hug, "and be honest to him. And receptive. Also, relax. Don't overthink it. And have fun."

"You said that twice," Killua says.

Alluka lifts her head from his shoulder. "Have fun, Killua." Nanika says, eyes wide and hopeful.

"I will," says Killua, softening, and threading his fingers into her hair. It is silky in his hands, easy to comb. He's touched that Nanika wanted to send him off too. "I'll go now."

Nanika presses her head against him once more, then lets go. Killua turns and opens the door, catching a last glimpse of Nanika waving goodbye- and then he's out.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Killua is five hours early, and he is not having fun.

He is leaning against the wall of a building closeby, tucked into a little alley, and an hour has passed since he got breakfast, and the blood is rushing in his brain in all kinds of anxious. Will Killua recognize Gon? Has he changed a lot? He's only seen one or two pictures of Gon since they parted, he doesn't know what to think when he sees Gon in the flesh. But will Gon recognize _him_? Shit. Killua should've worn his signature turtleneck and the baggy shorts, Gon would recognize him anytime with those on, right?

Being in Yorkshin brings back memories, and not good ones. It's been hard enough to shake the fear of Illumi ambushing him out of nowhere, he doesn't need flashbacks to the Phantom Troupe to make it worse. Killua knows it isn't possible, that they had lost Illumi months ago and he's off their trail for good, but Killua has always been a believer in being prepared for the worst. Fate has a way of creating unlucky coincidences and complicating plans. Yorkshin has already taught him this. And if he didn't learn from Yorkshin, then he definitely learned from the night ambush on the palace.

He hopes Gon will come. He knows they didn't part in the best of ways - hell, they barely said a goodbye at all. _See you_ , he had said to Gon. _See you_. That's the worst way to say goodbye to someone who he pretty much- well. Killua doesn't finish the thought.

"He was going to tell you something," Alluka's voice rings in his head, from after the goodbye had passed, what seems like forever ago.

("Why didn't he then?" He had asked, indulging his sister.

"I think it was meant only for you to hear.")

He should've said all the things he had wanted to say when Gon was in the hospital or when Gon was in the palace or when Gon was radiating pure sunlight in a rented room on the border of NGL, and all he could say was _see you_.

Killua bangs his head on the wall behind him. Anyway, whatever. They've talked over the phone before. They've sent an occasional letter. They're meeting right now. So it's no use thinking about how they parted. About how silent Killua was. How Gon seemed to wait for a reaction, and how Killua gave him none. (He was going to tell you something.)

It's been another hour now, and Killua is starting to doubt what he thought before. Maybe Gon isn't that excited to come. Maybe he's forgotten to come at all. Their agreed upon meetingplace is right in his line of sight, the intersection of two streets, from which you can see the auctionhouse. It's been almost fully repaired now from the stuff that happened two or more years ago. Yet another thing to tense him up. Why had they decided on being so close to this place anyway?

By the time it's two hours before they're supposed to meet, Killua is a mess of nerves. He is sweaty and and his heartbeat is way too loud. He's played and overplayed scenarios in his head and his nails have formed into claws inadvertently about three times.

That's when a boy walks across the street.

He examines the buildings carefully and thinks, then heads in Killua's direction. He is cautious, head turning this way and that, and slowly but surely reaching Killua's hiding place.

They boy wears a green jacket. He is close enough now for Killua to see the spikes of his hair.

Time slows down to a trickle.

The boy notices Killua.

"You're here?" he says, eyes bugging out. "I was supposed to be first!"

For a moment, Killua can't speak. "Too late," he says a second later, "Slow as always, Gon."

"Killua-a-a," Gon says, and all of a sudden he is running towards Killua- "I wanted to surprise you!"

Apparently they had had the same idea to ambush the other from here, but- Wait _wait_ , is he about to throw himself on Killua? Does he expect Killua to catch him? "You're- wait- no-"

The force of Gon's hug cut him off entirely.

"It's really you!" Gon breathes into his skin, head burrowed into the junction of Killua's neck and shoulder. His fingers squeeze his waist. It feels nice.

"You smell different," Gon says next.

"Oh, thanks," deadpans Killua. "Good to know you still have that freakish sense of smell." His hands come up slowly, slowly around Gon's waist.

Gon has gotten taller. His hair has gotten spikier too, seeing as it almost poked out Killua's eyes when Gon jumped into his arms. His voice is kinda different but also not because it's still Gon. He's... really kind of the same, except not, there's these tiny differences, a series of friendship bracelets on his arm, a pimple or two near his eyebrow, a few new scars on his legs, that make it so glaring how much Killua has missed from his life. It's kind of like walking into his room to find all the furniture has shifted six centimeters to the left. It's surreal.

Gon lets go, and looks and smiles at Killua. The silence stretches, and no words come to Killua's mind. Gon waits. And keeps waiting, oddly patient at the exact moment Killua needs him to break the tension.

Killua regrets he didn't wear that turtleneck now. Gon keeps looking, eyes running up and down and up again, and he keeps smiling-

"You wanna get food?" asks Killua, ever the conversation starter.

Gon lights up. "Yeah! Hey, let's go to that one place with the pies."

Killua catches on. "First one to finish four pies wins?"

"Loser has to show all their new Nen skills to the winner."

"You're on," Killua says, and races Gon the three miles to Pretty Patty's Pastries and Pies, the wind whipping through his hair and something fluttering in his stomach the entire time.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Three miles and four pies later, Killua is dying.

"Hhhhhhhgggggguuuuuh," he says, eloquently. The rush of competing with Gon, doing something so familiar and easy to Killua, has worn off and died with the rest of his digestive system. He has not had eating contests like this since Greed Island, probably.

"That was too easy, Killua," remarks Gon, wiping pie crust off his face, "Now you gotta show me your cool new Nen powers."

Killua sighs a very weary sigh. "Maybe when I'm not stuffed full of pie I'll show you," he replies.

"Wha-a-at? What happened to being ready for battle at any moment?"

"An eating contest with you happened," Killua says.

"Aww, Killua, you're making excuses now 'cause you don't wanna show me."

Killua sort of hates that Gon can tell. "I'm not doing any exercise in at least an hour. Alluka taught me how to be healthy."

"You just ate three pies! That's not healthy at all!"

Okay, so maybe he had gotten slow at eating and especially slow at eating competitions. Who can blame him, his kid sister did not care about eating fast as much as drawing pictures in her spaghetti sauce.

"Fine fine," he waves his arm around, "I'll show you. But later."

That seems to appease Gon. He rests his arms on the table and his head on them and just stares at Killua, who's using a spare fork to make doodles in the remainder of the lemon meringue. Killua really wishes he wore that turtleneck now.

He also wishes he did not say a bunch of things over the phone to Gon about recent events. It really makes starting conversations more of a struggle than it ever should be, with Gon. His eyes are a deep brown and very intent on Killua.

"What?" Killua says.

Gon shrugs casually. "Nothing," he says, and then, "It's a secret."

"So you're not gonna tell me?"

"Not yet," answers Gon. Killua can tell from the crinkle at his eyes that he's smiling a little where his arms hide his mouth.

("He was going to tell you something," plays in his head like a wind chime ringing in still air, like missing a step on the stairs.)

Killua presses it to the back of his mind and goes back to his shitty doodle of a hedgehog. It's turning out, well, shitty. Alluka would sigh heavily at his poor choice of pie for drawing. This would look better in whipped cream.

The green of Gon's sleeves and the shine of his hair and his eyes are still in Killua's field of vision. He's kind of been trained to notice when someone's eyes are on him, trained to keep the mentioned watcher in sight, and _man_ are Gon's eyes practically glued to him now. Killua looks very hard at the material of Gon's sleeves, and a thought comes to him.

"How does that jacket still fit you?" Killua asks, more surprised than distasteful.

"I don't know," Gon says. "Should it not fit me?"

"I dunno. It just feels like old times, seeing it." Killua scratches his ear, turns his head away. "You know, I thought about wearing a blue turtleneck, then it really would've been like the Hunter Exam again."

"Awww," Gon says, disappointed, "why didn't you? That would've been cute."

Killua ignores that last part. "It's way too hot for that," he says instead, and rubs the edges of his nails. Dull. Good.

"But what if it gets cold?"

"You sound like a mom."

Gon laughs. "I've been around Mito-san for a long time," he says. He sinks deep in thought, the smile fading from his face. He picks at the loose strands of the bracelets on his wrist. The sounds from the rest of the patio leak in, a chink of plates, laughter, the click of a waitress's heels.

"Did you know," Gon starts, more pensive than usual, "Palm visited a few months ago?"

"You didn't tell me, no," says Killua, "how is she?"

"She's leader of the Chimera Coalition for Rights. I think she's been working on getting chimera ants recognized as human beings and giving them citizenship and stuff."

Killua whistles. "Never thought she would turn into a politician."

"It's more like activism," Gon says, but that's obviously not why he's being so quiet about it.

Gon is hesitating. It's not a Gon thing to do. The table between them is a barrier several miles long, a gap of lava like in their games from so long ago that Gon just can't jump across. What happened? Killua thinks about Alluka's words again.

"You know I'm not Palm right," Killua says. "If you say something I don't like, I'm not gonna lunge for a steak knife."

That makes Gon laugh. "She's not like that anymore Killua! Well, I think."

Killua raises an eyebrow and Gon laughs harder. "She isn't!" he says, and yeah Killua knows she's changed, but he can deny that for a little longer when Gon is laughing as hard as he is.

"You're mean, Killua," he says, eyes bright, as he reaches over the table and flicks Killua's forehead.

" _Ow_ \- I'm mean? You're the one who's resorting to hitting me here."

"Yeah, you're too full of pie to defend yourself," Gon teases, "Even without Nen I could beat you."

"Ha. Good luck."

"Too bad you're being healthy and waiting for the food in your stomach to digest. Otherwise you sure could show me."

Killua slides the pie to the side, doodles of stars and infinity signs and things-resembling-hearts-that-are-certainly- _not_ -hearts forgotten. "I think it's time to show you some of my new Nen moves," he says nonchalantly.

"What- really?" Gon says, banging hands on the table, so excited that even his hair seems spikier.

"Yeah," Killua shrugs, as casually as he can while the blood is pulsing so fast in his veins. "I'll show them off fighting against you. And I won't go easy."

"No way," Gon says, "no going easy." His eyes are burning in something that Killua missed a lot. "At the park. I'll show you how much of my Nen I've gained back."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Gon says. He's already taking off his jacket, cracking his neck and his knuckles.

Killua slides his hands in his pockets. "Well, I'll see you there," he says, and turns, hiding his grin.

"Wait, wha-" is all Killua hears before he starts sprinting, Gon left in the dust.

"Too slow," he yells back as Gon trails after him.

Only after he's sprinted halfway to the park, snaking between trees and city blocks alike to lose Gon, does Killua realize that he never found out why Gon brought Palm up in the first place.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Killua does not show off his Nen on Gon, of course. He sees fairly quickly that Gon had not even mastered Kou yet. Gon's Nen sort of trembles around his fist, almost as if it doesn't want to form again, like an aversion to his hand. Killua does not like thinking of why.

"Have you talked to Wing and Bisky about it?" Killua asks, when they have finished sparring. The tree next to him is completely black, electrocuted, each molecule of water within it fried and evaporated.

"Yeah. Bisky told me to practice every day, but Wing said that I should meditate and just increase my overall Ten if I want any chance of getting better." Gon takes the edge of his shirt and flaps it like a fan to his face, trying to cool down. "Bisky says it's kind of like muscles deteriorating, so it's super hard to use them and you have to do it a lot to rebuild them, except its my Nen pores."

"But Nanika fully healed you," Killua frowns.

"Yeah, and that's why they even opened at all. But they're just- not cooperating. Bisky thinks it's because of the condition I'd set on myself."

Killua presses his lips together. He doesn't really know how Gon talks about it so casually, except he does, because Gon can talk about everything as if it was a mild discussion about the weather. It's straying near topics he would rather not breach the first day meeting each other in 13 months.

"You're not giving up on relearning Nen though, are you?" he says, a teasing note in his voice.

"No," Gon says, "I'll keep going until I relearn everything I knew before. But I'll still be kinda behind," he admits, scratching at his ear. "That thing where you wrapped the tree in lightning was so cool. You're so good, Killua."

Killua cannot summon up the energy to be embarrassed, not when Gon is complimenting him at his own expense. He sighs. "You remember that time in Greed Island when my hands were injured so bad that I couldn't train together with you?"

Gon smiles a little. "I had to brush your teeth for you," he says.

"Yeah, not that part," Killua says quickly. "I mean, you were way ahead of me in your training, on level five of emission or whatever, and I thought I'd never catch up." Killua looks down at his hands. Gon is close enough that Killua can smell his sweat. It would be kind of gross if it weren't such a familiar thing instead, the days and nights where they practiced under Bisky at the plateau near Soufeirabu. All of a sudden Killua is kind of glad that at least Gon's sweat is still the same- and man was that the weirdest thing he's ever thought of, but it's true. He doesn't really mind it, when push comes to shove. It proves this is still the Gon he knew. "But I did catch up. And the point is, you can catch up too. You will catch up. I'll help you, if you want."

"You caught up because it was three weeks of missed training," says Gon, "not years of relearning something you lost."

"Are you kidding?" Killua says. "You're gonna catch up 'cause you're Gon. The fact that it's years of training is gonna make you even more fired up about getting back your Nen. You love challenges. It makes me wanna start training again, just 'cause I know you'll catch up way too fast to be humanly possible."

A welcome breeze blows through the air and the leaves of willows, and Killua manages to take his eyes off Gon. "Whoa, I didn't know we'd been here so long," he says, turning, and catching sight of the pink in the clouds. The sun was floating above the horizon. It must be at least seven, if not later.

"Killua."

Gon is staring again. There's a sense of deja vu there, that something in Gon's voice, and Killua doesn't really understand what's going on.

"Yeah?" he says.

Gon's lips look so gentle, now. They curve up slowly in a smile, and yet there's something impossible to name at the edges. He looks away from Killua, still wearing that expression, and Killua thought he was the bashful one here, what happened-

"I missed you," he says softly, looking up at Killua.

Killua's stomach flips upside down.

"Going back home wasn't-" Gon breaks off, thoughtful. "Going back home wasn't what I expected." His eyes flit across the ground, tasting the words in his mouth. "It wasn't like before."

Killua does not know how to breathe.

Gon looks to him again. "I guess I thought that- once I went there with you, I'd always return there with you."

What can he say to that?

Gon's foot twists into the concrete, as if it's trying to make a mark into the path. His shoe makes a soft scraping noise. Killua has heard it a thousand times. Killua has seen Gon do this on cracked tiles and wet asphalt and soft carpeted floors, onto leaves that crunch and crackle and into squelching mud, a thousand times.

"And then, when I started training again, and you weren't there..." Gon trails off.

("He was going to tell you something," whispers a voice in his ear.)

Killua is still. It wasn't deja vu. It was a memory. It was one year ago at the World Tree, and it is now, in Yorknew. It was glass lodged in Killua's throat, the whistle of the wind in the space between them, the last time that they saw each other. It's the Moment. It's words that are left to linger too long in the air. It's Gon being too honest and Killua being too quiet. It's Gon retreating back to a casual voice and empty words, and Killua letting him.

Gon is waiting for an answer, for something. The sun is setting.

("He was going to tell you something.")

Gon glances down at his hands, and already his lips are twisting into words. Killua needs to do something. Gon needs to fill the silence somehow, and what he admitted will be lost to the stream of words again, and- What should he do?

"We should-"

What should he do?

"-It's probably-"

"Wait," Killua says.

Gon stares at him like he is the last person on Earth.

"I missed you too."

It's sorta breathtaking what those four words can do.

"Really?" breathes Gon. His eyes shine like the colors of the setting sun.

"Yeah," says Killua. It's hard to form words. "A lot."

"I thought- you never-" Gon says, "You never really made it seem like you did."

"I know. But I did."

It's like that one sentence, those four words were the catalyst for a waterfall. "You talked about all your cool adventures and the places you went to with Alluka and all the people you met and I- I wish I went with you instead- it would've been so much more fun- I-" he pauses, "I missed you. A lot."

"Yeah," Killua manages. "Me too."

Gon is staring again, and that's what he's done all day, and Killua thinks that it never used to be this piercing before. The sun paints him orange and pink like he is its canvas.

"When Palm came," he begins, slowly, quietly, "and told me about all that she had been doing, campaigns around the world, stuff for the chimera ants, I was-" he looks away, "I was angry."

Killua wants to close the gap, so no wind blows between them. "Why?" he says instead.

"I don't know. A bunch of stuff. She had a mission for herself, and she was doing it, too, and she didn't need Knov or anyone else to help, and I didn't know how to feel." His eyebrows angle down over his eyes, crumpling his entire face in something like years of restrained anger. "I hated the chimera ants. I don't hate her, but I hated the chimera ants. I didn't know how to react to her. I don't know why. I should've been happy, but I wasn't."

Killua is silent.

"I didn't understand what I was feeling for months. I kept making excuses about why I was so upset. But I don't think it was about the chimera ants at all," Gon says.

"Gon-" Killua starts.

"-I think it's because she still had her Nen and she had something to do and she had people to do it with-" Gon looks up at Killua, "and I didn't."

"You were jealous," Killua says, and knows it wasn't just Palm he envied.

"I guess-" Gon says, "-I was. She's admirable. _You're_ admirable."

Killua swallows. It feels like glass has been stuck down his throat, and he would know. It was a part of training, once.

"Sorry," Gon says.

"For what?" Killua says. "You can't control how you feel." Killua has felt it too.

"But I should," says Gon. "Should control my feelings."

Killua stares down. The sun is sinking now. Killua can tell because his shoes look less pink and more purple. Soon they will turn on the lampposts and they will glare orange on Killua's hair and Gon's eyes.

Gon looks a little tired, and desperate. "Do you understand?" he asks, and waits. "Do you know what I mean, now?"

(He was going to-)

Killua's heart thumps like wingbeats.

(-tell you something-)

He chances a glance up at Gon.

Gon takes a chance too. "I didn't wanna leave you," he says, just like that. "I never really wanted to leave you."

Killua thinks about the World Tree, and the hospital, and a room riddled with holes in a broken palace of a nation very far away.

"Really?" he asks.

"Really," Gon says, and repeats again. "I wanted to come with you instead."

The sun has sunken in the depths of the horizon and the warmth has gone with it. The wind blows once more, freezes Killua's fingers and the tips of his ears, but it does not come between them. ( _It was meant only for you to hear._ )

They should go home, to the hotel rooms Killua has reserved. Alluka is waiting for him by now. Killua doesn't know if she's eaten dinner yet. Or will she order room service. He really needs to go.

"It's me," Killua blurts instead, and he feels like he's going completely off the rails, but if Gon can say it, well then so should Killua. "I'm the one who didn't want you to leave. I-" he breaks into laughter, half nervous, he's so serious about this that it's embarrassing, "I, like, never want you to leave." He doesn't know if Gon gets it.

There's a pause, and then a small little smile on Gon's lips. "No," he says, "it's me. _I_ never want you to leave."

Killua stares at him a few seconds, and he doesn't feel the cold. "I never want you to leave again."

"I never want you to leave again _more_."

"Yeah?" Killua says, and now he's on the edge of laughter, his voice is trembling, how did they come to this, "I never want you to leave way,  _way more_. How about that?"

Gon laughs, and he's still hesitant and so is Killua, but it's okay. "I never want you to leave _most_. I win."

Killua rolls his eyes to hide his smile, but that's not going anywhere anytime soon. It lingers on his face as the quiet falls on them, like a shower of rain. Cars in the street, a way off, turn on their headlights and honk their horns. The muffled voices of other people at the park float to them.

Maybe it was just a bit too much to say on the first day. It's a lot to take in, and there's a part of Killua that's starting to freak out because he doesn't know what to do, what to say, next. It's both hard and easy to talk to Gon. There's still things they need to figure out. They've changed, after all. They need to relearn one another, how to talk to each other again.

"It was nice seeing you," Gon says, earnestly. He's not sure how to go on. He shuffles his feet, as if he doesn't want to leave again, even if it's to his hotel. He's made it quite clear, actually, that he doesn't want to leave again.

"Hey, _hey_ ," Killua says, unable to stop himself. "What's the big idea? You're staying for a few days, aren't you? We have all the time in the world to be together, catch up, all that stuff. No need to say bye so soon."

Gon smiles, the lampposts flickering to life in his eyes, and looks up.

"Yeah," he says. "You're right."

**Author's Note:**

> ive also remade my writing blog and ive been bored so any prompts would be fun, im at kokichefic.tumblr.com  
> thanks for reading!


End file.
